As Paul Saffo says, "Just because a new medium arrives doesn't mean an old medium dies out. "

Though it may certainly go into decline.

2010 figures are through August

Adult hardcover sales are up 5.2% so far in 2010

Hard to ignore that trendline, however.

Link to CNN article, "Will physical books be gone in 5 years?"

Excerpt:   As e-book readers and tablet computers become more common, one prominent tech mogul says that physical books could disappear sooner than expected.

In an interview with CNN's Howard Kurtz on "Reliable Sources," author Nicholas Negroponte, founder of One Laptop per Child, said the physical book's days are numbered.

"It will be in five years," said Negroponte. "The physical medium cannot be distributed to enough people. When you go to Africa, half a million people want books ... you can't send the physical thing."

Negroponte emphasized the efficiency of being able to put hundreds of books on the laptops his organization sends to villages. "We put 100 books on a laptop, but we also send 100 laptops. That village now has 10,000 books," he said.

When it comes to making e-books standard, Negroponte thinks that developing countries may actually be faster than developed countries.

"That's what cell phones did," Negroponte said. "Cell phones were more popular in Cambodia and Uganda because they didn't have phones. We had phones in this country, and we were very late to the table. They're going to adopt e-books much faster than we do."

Interesting personal perspective on Negroponte's Uganda/cell phone reference.